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Smack Overview
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<p>

Smack is a library for communicating with XMPP servers to perform
instant messaging and chat.<p>

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Smack Key Advantages
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<ul>
	<li>Extremely simple to use, yet powerful API. Sending a text message to a user
	    can be accomplished in three lines of code:

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XMPPConnection connection = <font color="navy"><b>new</b></font> XMPPConnection(<font color="green">"jabber.org"</font>);
connection.login(<font color="green">"mtucker"</font>, <font color="green">"password"</font>);
connection.createChat(<font color="green">"jsmith@jivesoftware.com"</font>).sendMessage(<font color="green">"Howdy!"</font>);
</pre></div>


	<li>Doesn't force you to code at the packet level, as other libraries do. Smack provides 
		intelligent higher level constructs such as the <tt>Chat</tt> and <tt>GroupChat</tt> 
		classes, which let you program more efficiently.

	<li>Does not require that you're familiar with the XMPP XML format, or even that you're familiar with XML.

	<li>Provides easy machine to machine communication. Smack lets you set any number of properties on
		each message, including properties that are Java objects.

	<li>Open Source under the Apache License, which means you can incorporate Smack into your commercial or
		non-commercial applications.
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About XMPP
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XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) is an open, XML based protocol
making it's way through the IETF approval process under the guidance of the
Jabber Software Foundation (<a href="http://www.jabber.org">http://www.jabber.org</a>).
For a good overview of the protocol, read the first chapter of <u>Instant Messaging
in Java</u>, available free at 
<a href="http://www.jivesoftware.com/products/messenger/book/">http://www.jivesoftware.com/products/messenger/book/</a>
 
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How To Use This Documentation
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This documentation assumes that you're already familiar with the main features of XMPP
instant messaging. It's also highly recommended that you open the Javadoc API guide and
use that as a reference while reading through this documentation.
 
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